Live and Never Let Die
by justagirlwithspnfeels
Summary: Dean's perspective on All Hell Breaks Loose. You guys will hate me (if I've done it well enough).
1. Death

"Hey, look at me. It's not even that bad. It's not even that bad, all right? Sammy? Sam! Hey, listen to me. We're gonna patch you up, okay? You're gonna be good as new. I'm gonna take care of you. I'm gonna take you care of you. I've got you. That's my job, right? Watch out for my pain-in-the-ass little brother? Sam? Sam! Sammy!"

No. No, not Sam. Not Sammy.

Cradling Sam's limp form in his arms, Dean looks around wildly, sees Jake's dark form disappearing in the distance. He's going to kill that son of a bitch if it is the last thing he does. But first he's got to help Sammy. Reaching along Sam's back, he takes off Sam's shirt and tears it into bandages, making a pad out of his own shirt and strapping it to Sam's back, ignoring the blood that's slowly oozing out of the wound. Some part of him knows it's useless. If Sam were alive, that blood would be pumping out. The rest of his mind screams at him, telling him to hurry up, do anything. He picks Sam up and carries him into the Impala, seeing nothing but the vindictive thrust and jerk of the knife along Sam's spine. God, that would have severed all his nerves, that would have…

No. Sam will be fine, he has to be fine.

Sam is a dead weight in his arms, pale, covered in dirt. Dean's jostling movements and the tears, burning his eyes, blurring his vision, he can almost fool himself into thinking Sam's chest is moving up and down, he's breathing, he'll be fine. But Sam's cold fingertips and the blue tinge in his lips say otherwise. Putting Sam in the back seat, laying him out, not caring that blood was getting on the leather, he straps him in as best he can. Sam looks so young. He could be sixteen, dreaming of normality, of going to college and meeting a girl and having children and having a life, after crying himself to sleep after Dad put his foot down, again. Dean strokes Sam's hair and smiles stupidly. Sam's goddamn hair. Maybe he should cut most of it off, so that, when Sammy wakes up… Dean jerks himself away, throwing himself in the driver's seat, slamming his car door.

He drives off, Sam's look of shock, of pain, burned into his eyelids.


	2. Not Mourning

At Bobby's, all Dean can do is stare at Sam's face. It's been a day, and rigor mortis has set in. Sam's a stiff, and Bobby won't stop nagging him to salt and burn the body. The body. As if Sam was nothing more than another ghost they'd hunted.

"Something big is going down. End of the world big." Bobby intones, solemn, almost goddamn inspirational. But Dean's not buying any of that bullshit.

"Well, then, let it end!"

His hoarse shout takes him by surprise. Dean's never been one for melodrama. He leaves it to Sam, who can be the most emotional little bitch he's even met. Was. Was the most emotional little... Something in Dean breaks, and with his new talent for dramatic flair, he realises it might have been his heart.

"You don't mean that." Bobby's remonstrating as though his disapproval is supposed to mean something. It really doesn't. Dean knows. It's his fault for not watching out for Sammy. For letting him go anywhere alone. For not getting there faster. For not warning him earlier. For failing at the one job, the only job he had. Keeping his pain in the ass brother safe. Somewhere, he knows, John and Mary Winchester and hell, maybe even Sam, are huddled in a little circle, looking at him disappointedly down from the heavens. He failed. The knowledge, the burden of his failure makes him lash out.

"You don't think so? Huh? You don't think I've given enough? You don't think I've paid enough? I'm done with it. All of it. And if you know what's good for you, turn around, and get the hell out of here. GO!" Dean shoves Bobby away, turning from those eyes. Eyes that hold sorrow and pity. He doesn't want either. He just wants Sam back. All the things he never said, all the stuff they never talked about. How Dean really wants Sam to be able to get out of this, get out before it kills him. How Dean just wants Sam to be happy. To have an apple pie life with a white picket fence and a shotgun filled with salt shells under the floorboards of his house, just in case some stupid ass ghost shows up and tries to mess with his family. Dammit, he just wants to see Sam smile again. Sam's face is almost frowning in death, as though he knows he's not done, he wasn't supposed to be done.

And other things that Dean's thought about involving Sam as well. Random moments in the car when Sam's mouth looked more inviting than any girl's he'd ever seen, and it was all he could do to stop himself from reaching out and tracing those soft lips. Dean's always been the hot one, while Sam's been Gigantor, a freak, Sasquatch, but sometimes, Dean looks at Sam and sees…he sees perfection. Innocence, a caring spirit, tenderness, so much love in one massive, massive male-model-perfect-body, and he wonders why the girls go after him instead of Sam. Why anyone would look at him rather than at Sam. Sam is fascinating. How his eyes change colour, how his front teeth are slightly longer than his others, how his face can change in an instant, how his smile breaks through like the sun through the clouds.

Was. Was fascinating.

And that's when Dean knows, he can't do squat without Sam. The world needs Sam. Dean needs Sam.

And he knows what he has to do to get Sam back.


	3. The Devil You Know

Dean drives hell for leather, not caring that the dirt road is rough and the suspension in his Baby isn't the greatest thing in the world.

"Come on, come on, come on…" he murmurs, eyes fixed on the road ahead, engine revving. Then he finally arrives. Squealing to a stop, Dean jumps out almost before the car has stopped moving, hits the ground running. Grabbing a box out of his pockets, he fills it with the skull of a black cat, a few other things, and a photo of himself, burying it in the dead centre. Whirling around, he shouts "Oh come on already. Show your face, you bitch!"

The demon slut flashes her red eyes and stares at him. They always seem to suit themselves to his past tastes. Big tits, sure, what guy doesn't like those? But the dark hair, changeful, capricious eyes you could lose yourself in, that skin… With a start, Dean realises that all the girls he's had a thing for, had a fling with, the ones he checks out in seedy bars, superficially, they resemble Sam.

Another reason to get Sam back.

This revelation throws him off his game too much. He's losing; the demon holds all the cards and she knows it. Dean's life is a bargaining chip, his immortal soul, and it's supposed to be something that's kind of in demand. The Winchesters have never been loved by the demonic powers that be, and, by God, this was giving them eternity to play cat and mouse with him. Why the hell wouldn't they take the goddamn bait? Dean starts to panic. Five years, five short years, that's all he wants. He knows he can work with five years, to ease Sammy out of the game, get him a place in society, and work out how to stop him from sacrificing himself for Dean when Dean gets taken for a one way ride to Hell.

One. One year is all he's going to get. But by now, he doesn't care. He grabs the demon, the bitch who has the nerve to look like his baby brother Sammy, and kisses her the way he kissed Sam's prom date in a fit of jealous pique, pure, utter sex. And, although Sam's always been the nerdy one, and Dean could never deal with Shakespeare, one line echoes in his head.

"Thus, with a kiss, I die."

Over a hundred miles away, Sam wakes, gasping for air.

Dean drives hell for leather back to him, not caring that the dirt road is rough. Flicking on the radio, he grins lopsidedly, rolls his eyes, scrolls down the windows and hollers the lyrics. "I'm on the highway to hell!"


	4. Back in Black

Dean bursts through the door, almost petrified that this is some sort of cosmic joke, that his deal with the devil has a Monkey's Paw-esque ending. That Sam's stuck in a dead body that continued to rot, or a zombie. The first thing he sees is Sam.

Then again, when has that not been the case?

Sam is convoluted, examining his back in the mirror. Dean refuses to let the heartbreaking moment replay on a loop in his mind. Every time he slept, before Sam came back, every night, it was the same nightmare. But now that's all over, Sam's back, alive, moving, healed, breathing. He can smell Sam's normal scent, the girly shampoo he uses, not the slightly ripe smell Sam had had when Dean decided it was now or never to sell his soul.

"Sammy," is all he can say, ripped out of his chest unwillingly. He almost tears up when Sam replies.

"Hey."

Sammy can speak. Unable to restrain himself, Dean yanks Sam into a tight embrace. He feels Sam's pulse in neck, throbbing comfortingly against his cheek, Sam's heart thudding against his chest. He can feel Sam's warmth and movement and breathing and life, and shit, he was going to start crying.

"Ow. Um, Dean…" Sam's voice is somewhat strangled and Dean lets go immediately. He would never, could never, hurt his little brother. Dean moves away and apologises. Not even sorry. That hug, alone, is worth any time he spends in damnation.

His eyes darken and he instinctively covers his mouth with his hand, leaning on one leg, trying to be casual. Sam's being inquisitive. Sam can't know. Sam would probably either hate Dean forever or hate himself forever, and Dean knows neither of those can happen. Simple as that. So, it's obvious what they have to do. Stop Azazel and Jake. Kill both those sons of bitches. Avenge Mom and Dad.

If only they knew how.

But in the meantime, there's a reason why Dean pulls off all those credit card scams, how he hustles pool like a goddamn pro. It's because he can fake it like nobody's business. So, feeling that sickening feeling he gets when he lies to Sammy, he adapts the truth. Sam doesn't question it, he knows Dean wouldn't lie to him. Dean feels his treachery, but hides it, pushes Sam back down on the bed where he left him. God, it's good to see Sam sit. Not lie there, stiff and grey.

Sam can move. Sam can speak. Sam can breathe.

Sammy's beautiful.


End file.
